Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Diocles of Carystus on the method of dietetics 75This heaping up of uncertainties at the beginning of this chapter mayappear a rather weak rhetorical strategy. Yet it throws some light on myreasons for selecting Diocles’ fragment 176 for discussion in the contextof an examination of the relationship between Hippocratic medicine andancient philosophy, and it may serve to illustrate an approach to it whichI would rather try to avoid. For the fragment in question – one of thefew longer verbatim fragments of Diocles we possess – has repeatedly beeninterpreted as being related to, and perhaps even directed against, certainHippocratic texts. 6 Moreover, it has fallen victim to what I believe to beexaggerated and unjustified interpretations of Diocles’ own position. Ithas, for instance, been read as a foreshadowing of medical Empiricism oreven Scepticism, 7 or as the culmination of the Aristotelian developmentfrom speculative philosophy to an empirically minded study of particularphenomena. 8 I shall be the last to deny that the fragment is important orthat it testifies to Diocles’ awareness of questions of methodology; and Ishall argue that in this respect we may speak of an original contributionto dietetics by Diocles, which may be seen as a partial correction of thedirection that dietetics had taken in the Hippocratic texts On Regimenand On Ancient Medicine; but it should not be seen as the ‘great fragmenton method’ (‘das große Methodenfragment’) in which Diocles expoundedhis philosophy of science and from which extrapolations concerning hisgeneral medical outlook can be safely made. 9The chapter is structured as follows. First, I shall interpret the fragmentitself in some detail (section 2). 10 Then I shall try to reconstruct the viewsDiocles is criticising and consider to what extent these correspond to whatwe find in the Hippocratic Corpus – and to what extent the critical elementson the Aphorisms in which the verbatim quotation is not present); see Jaeger (1938a) 27 n. 1. Infr.57 Galen has preserved a verbatim quotation of an argument used by Diocles against Hippocrates’assumption of the existence of fevers recurring every five, seven or nine days. However, althoughDiocles addresses someone in the second person singular, we cannot be certain that his objectionwas originally directed against Hippocrates. For caution with regard to Diocles’ acquaintance withthe name and reputation of Hippocrates see Smith (1979) 187ff.6 See Wellmann (1901) 163; Fredrich (1899) 169–73; Torraca (1965) 105–15 (with Italian translation ofthe fragment); Wöhrle (1990) 175ff.7 Kudlien (1963) and (1964), both reprinted in Flashar (1971) 192–201 and 280–95.8 See the publications by Werner Jaeger (1938a), (1938b), (1940) (reissued in German translation in[1951]), (1952) and (1959). The reactions Jaeger’s views provoked are conveniently discussed by vonStaden (1992).9 In this I endorse a view which was recently stated by von Staden (1992) 240.10 See also the commentary on the fragment in van der Eijk (2001a) 321–34. Further discussions ofthe fragment (other than the ones already mentioned) can be found in Deichgräber (1965) 274 n. 3;Bertier (1972) 32–3; Kullmann (1974) 350–3; Smith (1979) 183–6 (with an English translation), (1980)439ff. and (1992) 267; Frede (1987a) 129 and 235, 238 and (1985) xxii; von Staden (1989) 120–1.